from the University of Warwick

Christine Battersby

ASSOCIATE FELLOW OF THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE & THE ARTS

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), and was the visiting Fleishhacker Chair of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco during April 2013.

My research is thoroughly interdisciplinary, and includes feminist aesthetics; feminist metaphysics; the sublime; women and creativity; the anthropocene; living with dying; trauma; drone warfare; also 21st-century cosmopolitanism. I have a particular interest in the following writers: Beauvoir, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Schopenhauer and the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle).

Recent Board Membership includes: Network on Motherhood in Post-1968 European Literature (AHRC funded, 2012-13, based at the University of London); Network on Engendering Dialogue: Feminist Thought and Contemporary Debates in Art, Science and Education (funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2010-12, based at the University of Dundee); Programme Associate for research into Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament (Leverhulme Funded, 2007 - 2011, based at the University of Warwick). I am on the Advisory Board for the The Edinburgh Critical Editions of the Works of May Sinclair (forthcoming).

I welcome invitations to write articles, give papers or to participate in conferences or classes. A selection of my recent talks is listed below.

— ‘Her Body/her Boundaries: Gender and the Metaphysics of Containment’ in The Body, ed. A. E. Benjamin, Special issue of Journal of Philosophy and the Visual Arts 1993, 4, 30–39.

— ‘A Different View’, Art and Design 7, 1992, nos 3/4, 24-31.

— ‘“Hermaphrodites of Art and Vampires of Practice”: Problems of Women in Architecture’ in Architecture/ Space/Painting, ed. A. E. Benjamin, Special issue of Journal of Philosophy and the Visual Arts 1992, 3, 26–35.

—'Simone de Beauvoir, Stream of Consciousness and Becoming a Self: Two Unpublished Chapters from She Came to Stay', Stream of Consciousness Centenary Conference, ﻿Sheffield Hallam University, 27 July 2018.

— 'The Sublime at Sea: From the Infinity of Surface to the Oceans of the Anthropocene', Keynote for Conference on the 21st-Century Sublime, University of Warwick, 17 July 2018.

— 'Beauvoir’s Early Passion for Schopenhauer: Of Soap-Bubbles, Disappearance and After-Effects', Christina Research Seminar, Gender Studies Programme in the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art, University of Helsinki, 5 December 2017.

— 'Cavarero, Kant and the Arcs of Friendship', Conference on Giving Life To Politics: The Work of Adriana Cavarero, The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics, and Ethics (CAPPE), University of Brighton, Conference Presentation, 20 June 2017.

— 'Beauvoir’s Early Passion for Schopenhauer: Of Soap-Bubbles, Disappearance and After-Effects', AHRC Funded Workshop on German idealism and Early French Philosophy, Philosophy Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Senate House London, 16 June 2016.

— 'Of Cyborgs, Robots and the Ethics of Drone Warfare', Research Seminar, Materialist Ecological Architectures, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, 18 March, 2016.

— 'Philosophy, Feminism and the Female Self', Minorities and Philosophy Society (Inaugural Event), The Philosophy Department, The University of Stirling, 17 April 2015.

— 'Drone Warfare on Stage': A discussion with Lucy Ellinson, Performer of the Monologue Grounded by George Brant, Studio, Warwick Arts Centre, 8 October 2015.

— 'H.D., Modernity and the Mending of Time: “May 14 says the Calendar” (in 1943 and 2014)', Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts, University of Warwick, Coventry, 14 May 2014.

—'Cultures of Creativity: Shifting the Frame', Royal Institute of Philosophy Public Lecture, St Mary's University, Twickenham, London, 19 February 2014.

—'Gillian Howie's Situated Philosophy: Theorising the Intersections of Self, Body and World', Contribution to Feminism, Materialism, Critical Theory: A Symposium in Honour of Gillian Howie (1965-2013), University of Liverpool, 16 December 2013.

— 'H.D., The Postmodern and the Mending of Time: The Air War and "May 1943"', contribution to a Panel at H.D. and Modernity: An International Conference, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 7 December 2013.

— 'Natality, Materiality, Maternity: The Sublime and The Grotesque in Contemporary Sculpture', Plenary Lecture at a Conference on Motherhood in post-1968 European Women's Writing: Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Dialogues, Senate House, London, 25 October 2013.

— 'Moses, Isis, Helen and the Religions of the Sublime', contribution to a Seminar on Modernism and Religion, Modernist Studies Association Conference, University of Sussex, 31 August 2013

— 'What Did She Love? Grimm Reality, H.D.'s Everyday and the Mending of Time', contribution to a Panel on War and the Everyday, Modernist Studies Association Conference, University of Sussex, 30 August 2013.

— 'Theatrical Encounters: Metaphysics and the Sexed Self', invited contribution to a Symposium on Metaphysical Speculation in Contemporary Drama, co-organised by Chris Megson (Royal Holloway), Vicky Angelaki (University of Birmingham) and Elizabeth Tomlin (University of Birmingham), at the University of London, 9 July 2013.

— 'Of Cyborgs, Robots and the Ethics of Drone Warfare', Public Lecture, The University of San Francisco, 12 April 2013.

— Contribution to a Roundtable on the Effects of War on Society, Philosophy Department, The University of San Francisco, 10 April 2013.

— 'Struck by the Forgotten: Trauma and the Sublime in Nietzsche and Freud', Staff Seminar, Philosophy Department, The University of San Francisco, 9 April 2013.

—'The Poetry of H.D.', Undergraduate Seminar on War in Literature, Philosophy and Film, Philosophy Department, The University of San Francisco, 8 April 2013.

— 'A-Life, AI and B-Life: The Cognitive Sciences, Bare Life and Birthed Life', San Francisco Bay Area Feminist Workshop, 6 April 2013.

— 'Of Cyborgs, Robots and the Ethics of Drone Warfare', University of the West of England Philosophy Staff and Graduate Seminar, 6 March 2013.

— 'Natality, Materiality, Maternity: The Sublime and The Grotesque in Contemporary Sculpture', Seminar in MA Course in Gender, Culture and the Media, Goldsmith's University, 25 October 2012.

— 'Sea Changes: The Ebbs and Flows of the Oceanic Sublime', Plenary Lecture at a Symposium on Rona Lee: That Oceanic Feeling (art exhibition), John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, 13 October 2012.

— Roundtable contribution to The Political Aesthetics of Power and Protest, workshop linked to the Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament programme, Warwick University,25 September 2012.

— 'By a Woman Wrought: Do We/Should We Still Care?', Plenary Lecture, Seeing Things Differently: Art, Philosophy and the Futures of Feminism, The University of Dundee, Scotland, 30 March 2012; Engendering Dialogue II: Feminist Thought and Contemporary Debates in Art, Science and Education.

— 'A-Life, AI and B-Life: The Cognitive Sciences, Bare Life and Birthed Life', Plenary Lecture, Conference on Bodies of Thought: Fleshy Subjects, Embodied Minds and Human Nature, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, 11 June 2011; one of series of conferences on Engendering Dialogue: Feminist Thought and Contemporary Dialogue in Art, Science and Education, podcast.

— 'Natality, Materiality, Maternity: The Sublime, The Grotesque and the Art of Marc Quinn', 'The Friday Event', Public Lecture, Glasgow School of Art, 13 November 2009.

— 'The Sublime and Birth-Works', Seminar for graduate and undergraduate students, Glasgow School of Art, 13 November 2009.

— 'Celebrating Other Philosophers: Methodology, History and Philosophical Debate', Situated Selves: Phenomenology, Law and Aesthetics -- Celebrating the Work of Christine Battersby', Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, 30 - 31st October 2009.

— 'Natality, Materiality, Maternity: The Sublime, The Grotesque and the Art of Marc Quinn', Natality, Embodiment and the Maternal: Feminist Conversations', Keynote Speaker, University of Dundee Philosophy Conference, 28 - 29 May 2009.

— 'Harriet Hosmer, Laocoon and the Sublime' for an undergraduate course on Victorian Women, Travel and Europe, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 20 March 2009.

— 'Nietzsche's Ecce Homo as Autobiography' for an undergraduate course on Truth and Language in Modern Autobiographical Texts, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 19 March 2009.

— 'Struck by the Forgotten: Trauma and the Sublime in Nietzsche and Freud', Open Lecture/Seminar, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 18 March 2009.

— 'Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun and the Picturesque' for an undergraduate course on Victorian Women, Travel and Europe, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 17 March 2009.